Lawmakers Want Answers On DOC Hiring Practices

Some state lawmakers are proposing measures to keep gang members and criminals off the state payroll. This is in response to the discovery of a Department of Corrections employee who, despite gang ties, 24 arrests and three convictions and falsified job qualifications, bounced among several high-level jobs at multiple state agencies. State Rep. Dennis Reboletti (R-Elmhurst) says gang members and ex-offenders shouldn’t be in certain jobs.

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“We’re all about giving people second chances and giving ex-offenders (second chances. We worked on legislation with our colleagues this last session to give opportunities to those who have turned their lives around. But there are some positions that just don’t allow for that to happen,” he said at a news conference today (Friday) at the Thompson Center in Chicago with two other Republican House members. Reboletti’s bill would ban gang members from jobs in corrections, state police and DCFS. State Rep. Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton) is working on a bill to ban anyone from any state job if they’re convicted of two serious offenses.

The group also wants committee hearings on this particular instance to get to the bottom of how the individual involved was hired multiple times, sometimes at six-figure salaries, despite the red flags.